Check It Out

The Global Business Culture Guide 
by Lothar Katz

Chula Vista Campus Library
New Books HF5389 .K38 2014
Available for four-week check out with your SWC photo ID card

Anthropology, Psychology and Business majors rejoice, this book will keep your attention. The author, Lothar Katz is a management advisor and cross-cultural consultant to many US companies and author of several books about conducting international business.

He organized the book from general to specific in three parts: Part I discusses the different cultural models (Hall, Hofstede, Trompenaars, the Globe Study, Walker/Walker/Schmitz) that describes how people behave in countries. As with all general forms, the author warns that these culture models fit some countries more than others or the culture can or cannot handle more deviation from its values and practices. Part II focuses on business dealings in cultures. It stresses the importance of always learning about the history of the country and observing the geographical influences in all business relationships. This part of the book also hashes out the subcategories that are used in Part III, such as the power of relationships, respect and trust, non-verbal messages and so on.

Several of the chapters offer good advice on successful communication, negotiations and other parts of business transactions, and warns us on the danger of getting comfortable with little knowledge and lots of luck in working across cultures. Part III gives specific details of descriptions of the cultures of 50 countries.

The do and don’t boxes at the end of the country descriptions are particularly useful information as well as the concise summary of statistical data and history portion in the front of these chapters.

Review by Erika Prange, SWC Librarian